The 16th Street Mall is a place for tourists, diners and shoppers, and where people live and work. Denver Business Journal reporters fanned out along the length of the mall to get the impressions of members of the mall community about 16th Street. Here's one of their portraits.

Descending to the street from her sixth-floor office in the World Trade Center, Karen Gerwitz has a unique view of the 16th Street Mall — that of someone who sees Denver’s core through the eyes of foreigners.

Visitors from Great Britain or the Netherlands come daily to the building at 1625 Broadway, seeking everything from business connections to advice on activities around the Mile High City. Gerwitz, president of the World Trade Center, sends them down the mall, and they return fascinated.

“They love the fact that we have brewpubs downtown. It really makes it a more amusing city,” Gerwitz said. “We want them to see the vibrant nature of the city ... The last thing we want is to spend all our time recruiting [foreign business leaders] here and planning their visits, and then they get here and think we’re a dud of a city.”

The World Trade Center opened on the mall in 1988. Gerwitz hasn’t been there from the start, but she walks the mall enough to know its ins and outs.

Sometimes when strolling off the mall by the Denver Performing Arts Complex, she said, she’ll act like she’s talking on the phone to avoid the attention of rougher elements. But she walks the mall in the morning and at night, and she feels safe.

And not only do foreign visitors feel safe, they’re amazed at how well-maintained it is, she said.

“A lot of people from here may not feel that, but I always hear how clean and environmentally friendly it is,” Gerwitz said. “It’s a good environment for us.”